Climate Impacts - Impacts For People, Drought, Floods, and Hurricanes

To-Do Date: Apr 26 at 9:30am

Climate change is and will continue to amplify droughts, floods and increase the strength of tropical storms and hurricanes.  

 

Study guide questions 

3.How does climate change affect the risks of hurricanes, floods, and drought

    • Why is there more rainfall in some areas and less in other areas when climate warms? 
    • Why are there more intense storms, including hurricanes? 
    • California impacts
      • What can we expect to happen to the rainfall patterns in California?
      • What is the problem with using average rainfall to describe California's changing ppt? 
      • What is climate whiplash?

How Climate Change Impacts Weather

 

Precipitation

Warmer air can hold more water than colder air.  Thus, as air temperature warm, we expect and are seeing both more extreme droughts and floods. These seems like a paradox, but let's examine this infographic to understand the changes.  It's easy to see how  higher temperatures lead to more evaporation of water and therefore bigger storm systems (clouds are just water vapor). But what is not as obvious, is that this means that water  is being dumped in one place, and that is usually robbing water from somewhere else- ie where there will be a drought. 

More extreme droughts can occur because the warmer air masses will hold onto water, causing less rain. More extreme flooding is predicted because when it does rain, that air mass will likely hold more water and precipitate more.  In addition, we've seen some storms that are surprisingly sluggish - they don't move, but rather sit over one region and rain for longer periods of time than would otherwise be expected.  

For example, in 2016, a flood event in Louisiana received over 31" of rain in one week, and Hurricane Harvey in 2017 dropped four feet of rain in two days in Houston.

Accessible text for How Climate Change Impacts Weather Image.docx Download Accessible text for How Climate Change Impacts Weather Image.docx 

 

Hurricanes

Warm ocean temperatures are linked to increases in storm intensity for tropical storms, hurricanes, and typhoons.  Learn more about the link between hurricanes, ocean temperatures, and climate change in the 4-minute video below.  

Watch the short video below to see how one young woman in Miami Florida is taking action to help propel actions protect her community from the increased risk of hurricanes.

 

Gabriella mentions climate refugees.  Consider how many people left New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, Houston after Hurricane Harvey, Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, or the people fleeing the destruction caused by two hurricanes in Honduras.  This is an example of how climate change-related disasters can contribute to global instability as refugees settle in new cities, states, and countries that may be ill-prepared to handle the influx.

 

California

What about California?  California is headed for a future of extreme swings between drought years and flood years. Read about what we are in for in this article: Study forecasts a severe climate future for California Links to an external site..